


Suited

by sensitivebore



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:06:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sensitivebore/pseuds/sensitivebore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carson and Hughes, suited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suited

They arrive at the outfitter's and he holds the door for her, points out the waiting area where she can rest while he sees to his business. Elsie sits, crosses her ankles prettily, looks around at the jackets and the shirts and the ties on display. She smiles as she hears him discuss what he needs; everything will have to be custom, of course, there's nothing already made that would fit him, not by a mile. She wonders idly if he gets tired of that, if he wishes he could just buy a shirt out of a ready-made package instead of being measured, looked over, clucked at.

Carson returns, takes a chair next to her. He's still stewing a bit inside from her earlier question. Would he write — she asks every year and he wonders if she'll ever come to understand that he will always write. He'll write until she's not there to write to and even then he'd probably still write. It's how he gets through the months in the crowded, smoggy city; it's what keeps him home in the evenings instead of being urged out to a pub crawl by other footmen, butlers, valets. It's how he manages to — almost always, almost — ignore the whores beckoning from alleys, from windows. He stays home, and he writes to her.

Elsie picks at a seam on her handbag, fidgets a little. To the theatre, he had said, to a show or two. It's not her place to inquire, but she does anyway, puts a false brightness in her voice. "Will you be calling on anyone in particular while in the city? Seeing any friends?" He has friends there, surely, though he never talks about them, never mentions going here or there will this chap or that one. She swallows, looks at the display case in front of her. Never talks about any ladies he might call upon for company. She doesn't want to hear about them, if they exist. She does. She doesn't. She does.

He examines his hat, brushes at it absently as he waits to be called back for measuring. "There's two or three butlers I meet with, yes; we have a few pints and stroll around London, take in the sights." Carson considers it. He probably will, he'll probably gather with Jones and Stevens at a pub, a hotel, somewhere. Complain about their work, commiserate about useless footmen, trade tips and secrets. They'll encourage him to go out with them, find entertainment, find women. He'll decline — probably he will, probably — and be the first to leave. Go back to his room, write to her. Describe everything he has seen and most things — most — he has done in perfect, crystalline detail.

Elsie knows he is a man like any other man, and that he cannot live the life of some chaste monk. She also knows that it's not difficult for a man to find female companionship — of a type — should he look for it in a place like London. Her fingers close around her wrist, tug at the sleeve. She knows there are women who would be with him. Be with him freely, in his quiet room, perhaps after spirits and hot, urgent necking in a dark corner, perhaps after a show. She knows that if he wants no such complications, there are women who will do anything he desires for a pittance of pay.

Now that she has asked about friends, however, he thinks about her spring and how she'll spend it. The house is cleaned from top to bottom, he knows that, it always shines and smells sweetly on his return, glows in every nook, every cranny free of dust and dirt and the long debris of winter. He imagines she'll read a great deal, spend a fair amount of time in the village with women friends, other housekeepers, maids. His shoulders tighten. Perhaps she'll be asked to a village dance or to the pictures by some shopkeeper, some small farmer. The last time he had come back, there had been that man, courting her and proposing marriage. How had that gotten by him? He listens to her, listens to every word, but that man had slipped by somehow and caught him off guard. There might be another man that she won't talk about in her letters, and he's not sure if he wants to know. He does. He doesn't. He does.

The tailor finally calls him back and he excuses himself, leaves his hat with her, and goes to be measured, to discuss color, fabric, cut. Elsie looks out the window at the passing pedestrians, stares vacantly at the sweet shop across the street as she considers her own summer. There'll be plenty of work, of course, but she will have leisure time, more than the rest of the year. She'll read, and go to church, and have her own clothes sorted out at the milliner, at the dressmaker. The new maids will get extra training, she will make sure to allow them some little freedoms, as well. Her evenings, like every year, will be tea in her room, perhaps a little wine — when she's very lonely, she opens one of the bottles he keeps back in his office for them, has a glass — and she will answer his letters. She'll tell him awful jokes that she reads on candy packets, she'll tell him about the rows between Daisy and Mrs. Patmore, tell him how the gardens are looking. Answering his letters is what keeps her home, keeps her from the Friday night dances, from the blacksmith whom she exchanged heated kisses with a couple of years ago behind his forge, when she had stopped just to check on the gardener's order for wrought iron. He had been handsome and she lonely and the letters were slow that week, so why not? Why not walk out back to admire the sunset, why not let hard lips fill her time for ten minutes? She won't do it again, it had been empty, meaningless, left her feeling sad in some undefinable way, so she won't — probably not, probably.

Carson comes out of the back room, pulling his suit coat back on, and he's ready to go, has put in his order, checked it. Elsie stands, smooths her coat, hands him his hat. They step out into the street and the sky is dusky and streaked faintly with pink and orange and it's a lovely sight and she thinks why not? He's going for three months, a quarter of the year, and all they'll have is time to think about it, to write about it, to exchange endless words. She doesn't want to talk, not right now. Turns to him, looks up.

"Will you come around the back with me?"

He gives her a questioning glance.

"Just for a moment or two. Just to see the sunset."


End file.
